Congress 2015 Speaker in the Spotlight

Ms. Feil is a Senior Patient Safety Analyst with the Pennsylvania Patient Safety Authority and is currently the lead analyst for the Pennsylvania Hospital Engagement Network Falls Reduction and Prevention Collaboration. She has authored several articles for the Pennsylvania Patient Safety Advisory detailing best practices in fall risk assessment and prevention, and has presented on these topics to various hospital and patient safety organizations. Michelle has more than 16 years’ experience in acute care medical surgical nursing, serving 10 of those years as a unit-based, master's-prepared nurse focused on quality improvement and patient safety at the bedside. She is a Certified Professional in Patient Safety.

Is this your first time speaking at NPSF’s Annual Congress?

Yes

What are you most looking forward to at Congress?

I look forward to meeting like-minded professionals from across the country who are passionate about improving the quality and safety of healthcare for all Americans. I expect to be inspired and energized by the presentations and I hope to do the same for others.

What does patient safety mean to you?

Patient safety means providing high-quality, evidence-based patient care individualized to each patient. This requires mindfulness, compassion, teamwork, and a drive to constantly improve the way we deliver care. I know that this can be achieved, from my years of working as a Clinical Nurse Specialist on large adult medical-surgical units. I hope to be able to spread this “can-do” patient safety commitment to interdisciplinary teams working in hospitals across the country.

You can find Ms. Feil in theAdvancing Safety Science Implementation track inSession 506: Collaborating to Reduce Falls with Harm from11:00AM – 12:00PMon Friday during Congress. For a full description of his sessionplease see below.To register for the NPSF Congress,click here.To view details about other breakout sessions,click here.

In 2012 the Authority partnered with the Hospital and Healthsystem Association of Pennsylvania and 79 hospitals across the state as part of the Partnership for Patients Hospital Engagement Network (HEN) Falls Reduction and Prevention Collaboration aimed at reducing falls with harm. Between 2012 and 2014, collaboration members successfully reduced falls with harm and increased implementation of most falls-prevention best practices. Collaboration members were provided education on falls-related topics and quality improvement processes. Regional meetings and coaching calls provided means for hospitals to share and learn from one another. Lastly, tools created for the collaboration (e.g. self-assessment survey, audit tool) provided hospitals the opportunity to assess and audit their current falls prevention program and were vital to the success of this collaboration.

Upon completing this session, attendees will be able to:

Describe how a large collaboration can be modeled to target improvement in a specific health care associated condition, such as falls and falls with injury

Discuss the successes, challenges and barriers with falls prevention in the PA-HEN Falls Collaboration

Identify and demonstrate tools that were used during the collaboration to the audience